Brief Chat: Adharanand Finn, Kenya Book Author

May 13, 2012

By Matt McCue

In 2011, Adharanand Finn, an editor at The Guardian, moved his family from England to Iten, Kenya, to immerse himself in the culture of the world’s fastest distance runners. He chronicles his adventures and observations in his new book, Running with the Kenyans.Much has been written about the Kenyan runners. In what ways is your book different from what else is out there? Adharanand Finn: I’ve always had an interest in running and I’ve always been fascinated by the Kenyans. These athletes appear for the marathons in London and New York and then they disappear back to Kenya and no one really has any empathy for who they are. I feel there is this general sense that it’s just boring that the Kenyans win everything. That’s because people don’t understand what these guys have been through, how they live, and where they come from. Lots of people have written books about emulating them in your training, and I was more interested in finding the human story.Unlike many authors, you moved your wife and children there while you reported. How did you make that decision? AF: My sister-in-law had moved to Kenya and that made it seem more feasible, even though she had no connection to the running community and lived on the other side of Kenya. My wife and I always had the idea to take our children some place exciting, so I managed to convince my wife that her sister was there, and let’s combine it all on this one trip, so we went for it. Then maybe there was the element of a midlife crisis going on. I was 37 and thinking, “I want to do something exciting with my life.”You write a lot about the hierarchy of the training camps. Tell us about what you saw. AF: I think the camps are even more important than I stressed in the book. In these training camps, the Kenyans are living their training and not just showing up at the track to do their workout for two hours and go on with whatever else they have in their lives. Every waking hour has this running focus. Even if they are sitting resting, they are resting for training. They never go out. The only other thing they do is go to church or go see their family once a week.It creates this incredibly focused environment that I think is a really key difference between how athletes in the West live. If you look at the top athletes in Britain they may live in a similar way but we’re talking the top five or six. In the U.S., we’re probably talking about 50-60 long-distance runners. I don’t want to exaggerate, but in Kenya there are probably at least 1,000 people living at this level of dedication.Since the camps are the gateways to the major international races, how hard do the runners work to get into them? AF: Once you are in a camp you’ve kind of made it, so there is a very relaxed, serene, and calm atmosphere in those athletes. But I’d say there are 25-30% of the runners living outside the camps and they are desperate to get into the camps. They are, perhaps, training too hard or racing too much to get attention. When they meet someone like me they will assume that I am a manager and will try to impress me by telling me how fast they can run, probably exaggerating the times, and wanting to run with me.How can you tell who is and isn’t in the camps? AF: I was with the One 4 One camp, which has Emmanuel Mutai, who won the London Marathon last year. One 4 One has this whole group of people who live outside of the camp [and are not associated with it], but they still come to the training sessions. Before the session is about to start, you can tell immediately who is in the camp and who is not. The athletes in the camp are wearing the latest running gear. The guys not in the camps have ripped shoes and clothes. There are lots of runners that don’t make it and it’s amazing the level of dedication that those people have, even if it’s clear to someone like me that they are never going to make it.From a footwear perspective, what did you see in Kenya? AF: The first thing that struck me is that there were no barefoot runners. I went there fully believing the barefoot myth and was excited to see all of these barefoot runners. And there were none. The second thing is that they will wear any shoes they can get. Most of them will wear shoes that are too big for them, too small—anything. What is interesting is that all of the children run barefoot. If you go to a children’s race then 99% of the top runners will be running barefoot. I think the barefoot theory still has a role to play and the fact that they grow up barefoot is a factor in the way they run. They have lovely running form.Why do they start to wear shoes once they try to become professional runners? AF: I think they wear shoes because they see Americans and Europeans wearing the shoes and think, “These guys have all of the technology,” even though they don’t look at the results. When you get to the top athletes in Kenya who get the latest shoes, they will probably be sent 10 pairs of trainers and will keep two and give the rest away to their friends. Generally, I would say there is very little thought among the Kenyans about what kind of shoes they wear.Did you uncover any other myths in your reporting? AF: The first thing that jumps to mind is a myth that was confirmed that they run to school. It seemed like one of those things people exaggerate from childhood. It was quite amazing to be running at 6:30 a.m. and pass streams of kids who were running or walking to school.Is that because they want the kids to start training at an early age? AF: The reason they are running to school is that they don’t want to be late. If they are late they will get into trouble and that usually involved getting hit with a stick by a teacher.When you were talking to the runners, what did they have to say about Sammy Wanjiru? AF: Everything changed after he died. I was told that if I wanted to meet Sammy Wanjiru the best way to meet him was to go to a bar in Eldoret late at night, which is very unusual for one of these athletes. They are usually in bed by 9:30. Sammy was supposed to be running a big marathon in 2011, the London Marathon, and people said they saw him training with sunglasses on and that was a sign he had been drinking and he didn’t want people to recognize him because he was running slowly. When he died, suddenly everyone was saying it was a terrible shame and no one was mentioning the drinking.In your book you mention that a few of the elite Kenyan runners had become taxi drivers upon retirement. What was the most common post-career venture you saw elite runners take on? AF: The most common thing they seem to do is to start schools. Very few of them seem to carry on in running or coaching. Most seem to go into business, and when they are starting schools it seems like a very philanthropic venture, but they are actually running them as businesses and charging for the private schools.Before you moved to Kenya, you wrote, you were slower than the slowest junior girl there. After training in Kenya, were you able to beat any of them? AF: I think I was. Every Thursday morning all of the groups in Iten get together to do one big fartlek session, and there is usually between 100-200 people running. I wasn’t brave enough to venture into that session the first couple of months and when I did I was near the back but there were always junior women behind me. That was the only session where I was never last.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Runner's World participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.